


Ampersand

by Nhitori



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Abuse, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7901674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper & Lapis<br/>Lapis & Jasper</p><p>For the longest time it seemed as if that was all Lapis Lazuli would ever be.</p><p>Then suddenly, she wasn't.  And she wasn't the only one who needed to pick up the pieces.  At least all her friends took her side. At least... but she has to wonder if she deserves it.</p><p> </p><p>  <i> I'm not gonna live my life on one side of an ampersand, </i><br/><i>And even if I went with you, I'm not the girl you think I am, </i><br/><i>And I'm not gonna match you cause I'll lose my voice completely,</i><br/><i> I'm not gonna watch you, <b>cause I'm not the one that's crazy.</b></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ampersand

**Author's Note:**

> A human au of SU sure is hard to produce... Well, I tried my best to translate the characters in a fitting way, and as for fusions... I just decided to keep them as their separate entities for the sake of this fic. I hope you enjoy!

Lapis clutched her bag close to herself as she walked down the street, away from the art gallery. She should have been ecstatic, she knew this, but she didn’t feel much of anything. They’d agreed to feature some of her sculptures, impressed by her abstract approach to life; the pay would more than make up for the income she’d lost after quitting her job, and the praise alone should have made her absolutely joyous. However… She was having trouble feeling the way that she ought to.

She stared down, watching her own feet as she moved along. The sidewalk was covered with dried out stains of gum, and she avoided stepping on the cracks out of no superstition, but only habit. Her flats were the slightest bit too big for her, so the heels kept coming off, ever so slightly. A streetlight flickered on, and she looked up, only to see them coming on down the street. It was officially evening. She sighed and kept moving.

She didn’t look back down, however, keeping her eyes ahead this time. It wasn’t a result of the change in atmosphere, but rather because she was getting that much closer to home. She needed to make it clear that she had a purpose in her movement, to look straight ahead and avoid making herself into any sort of target. She was a rather slim, fragile-looking girl who could only afford an apartment in the part of town where certain people might take unsavory actions to try and afford something better.

“Oi! What’s with the long face, Lapis? Come on, gimme a smile!” A guy leaning against one of the buildings shouted out to her, and his buddies snickered.

“Oh. Hello,” Lapis greeted them, pulling her bag in closer to herself as she stepped up to the crosswalk. They knew her name thanks to her lack of street smarts when she first arrived in the city, and had answered their catcalls with ‘hello, I’m Lapis.’ They were harmless, though, so she didn’t mind so much.

She stood waiting for a moment, only to hear sirens. She couldn’t cross with those in earshot, clearly, so she just waited it out till she saw the ambulance pass by her, and of all times, a smile passed over her face now. It wasn’t that she was glad to see an ambulance, not quite. Rather, it was touching to her, that even with everything that was wrong in this world… There was still such a rush to help people who’d been harmed. As long as there was somebody willing to call them, that is. Her smile faded with this thought.

As long as somebody was willing to call.

She took a deep breath, and stepped out into the street now that it was empty again. The other side of the street, one more block north, and she was at the apartment building she called home. She pulled her keys from her purse, although the building itself wasn’t quite well-made enough to require keys both at the main door and at the apartment. She was on the second floor, midway down the hallway, but before she’d even put her keys in the door it swung open, her roommate standing there looking earnestly up at her.  
“Lapis!!!” Peridot greeted her with some level of urgency, clutching one arm in close to herself. Lapis glanced down at the other arm to confirm her suspicions, and upon seeing the empty wrist, knew exactly what Peridot was about to say next, “Thank goodness you’re back! I lost my hand again! Help me find it! I need to find it before seven!”

“It’s already five thirty...:” Lapis sighed, stepping inside, “Doesn’t it usually take at least four hours to find it? How do you even manage this all the time?”

“It won’t take four hours this time! I… I’m pretty sure. If you help,” Peridot chuckled, nervously rubbing the back of her neck with the hand she actually had, “I took it off to try and modify it to work better with touchscreens, but then I got hungry, so I went and ate some watermelon, and when I went back, it was nowhere to be seen…”

“Of course,” Lapis rolled her eyes as she stepped into the apartment, and looked around, “How didn’t you find it, though? I just cleaned the apartment. Even you can’t make a new mess that quickly…”

“Of course I can’t! I didn’t even eat potato chips today!” Peridot gestured to the apartment, which was generally clean except for a jacket and a few empty soda bottles. She also had every fan turned on, scraps of paper fluttering in them. She’d added those to keep track of which ones broke, as they often did, so she could fix them. There was no air conditioning, and the carpeting was worn out, but it was home. Especially with Peridot’s assortment of alien-patterned blankets on the fold-out couch, “But my hand is still missing.”

“I’ll take a look,” Lapis sighed, then walked over to the kitchen, which was only separated from the living room by a half-wall, “Remind me again why I do these things for you?”

“Uh…” Peridot trailed off, scratching her nose, “Because you have a soft spot for technologically gifted amputees?” Peridot followed Lapis further into the apartment, with her permanent slight limp. At least losing track of a prosthetic hand wasn’t _as_ obnoxious as the times when she lost track of her leg.

“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure…” Lapis mumbled, pulling open the fridge to find Peridot’s hand sitting there. She grabbed it, then held it up above her head, “The term for somebody who’s missing limbs from birth is different from amputee?”

“Well,” Peridot reached up for the hand, but couldn’t get it, and grimaced, “Actually, in all technicality the term would be _congenital amputee_ but I certainly hope you don’t expect me to use that on a regular basis.”

“Huh,” Lapis nodded, glancing away, “I wasn’t expecting that. Amputee sounds like somebody who lost limbs. Not who was born without them. But I suppose you do know what you’re talking about,” She closed her eyes, then lowered her arm and gave Peridot her hand back, “Next time, you’re on your own. Deadline or none.”

“You’re so good at finding things though,” Peridot protested, “Or at least, finding my prosthetics! I _never_ would have thought to look in the fridge!” She burst out laughing, then hid her face behind her arm, “It just doesn’t make sense!!”

“It makes perfect sense,” Lapis crossed her arms, “You brought it with you when you stood up to get watermelon, then left it in the fridge. Isn’t that obvious?”

“Logically, yes, but abstractly? Why would a hand ever be in the fridge? It’s just ridiculous!” Peridot kept on cackling, now clutching at her stomach in her overreaction to the supposed humor. Lapis just stood there staring until she composed herself, “Anyway… Speaking of abstract! How did things go with the gallery today?”

“They went great,” Lapis answered, but her voice didn’t fluctuate in the least.

“Great as in… they want to feature your pieces, or great as in they said you suck and you’re being sarcastic?” Peridot questioned as she affixed her hand to her wrist, then cupped her chin in both, “You’re making it pretty hard to tell…”

“Am I? Sorry,” Lapis turned to look away from Peridot, and shrugged, “Great as in they accepted it. The money should cover my portion of the rent till I can find a new job.”

“Yeah…” Peridot trailed off, biting down on her own lip as she looked away, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Lapis sighed, raising a hand to her own cheek, “I needed a change anyway, I guess. I was working there too long…” She froze for a moment, then walked away, “I’m going to go sit in my room and watch TV for a few hours before I go to sleep.”

“What!?” Peridot questioned, turning on a dime then chasing after Lapis, “Don’t you want to see Amethyst? She’s visiting later!”

 

“Hm,” Lapis muttered, continuing to walk, “Is Steven coming along?”

“Well,” Peridot pushed her fingers together with a nervous chuckle, “No, but…”

“I’m not interested,” She shrugged off her roommate, then reached for the knob of her own bedroom. However, before she could reach it, Peridot grapped her wrist, and she just froze where she stood.

“It’ll be fun, Lapis! Come on,” Peridot insisted, but then looked up to see Lapis’s eyes, which were wide, horrified, and somehow absent. Her own face fell and she released her friend’s wrist, then took a step backwards, “Oh… Oh no. Lapis. I’m sorry, I-”

“Peridot…” She responded, but sounded far away, as if she wasn’t all there, “ _I’m_ sorry…” Something was confused in the way she said that, not only distant, but as if she wasn’t sure why she was apologizing at all. Peridot wasn’t sure why she was being apologized to, either. She was the one who’d made a mistake. However, before she was able to say anything else, Lapis had disappeared into her own room. Moments later, the familiar sounds of _Camp Pining Hearts_ drifted through the less-than soundproof walls.

“Way to go, Peridot…” Peridot told herself off, grimacing as she walked away from Lapis’s room. She knew all about the situation, of course she did. Nobody else knew, but it was hard not to figure out what had happened when living with Lapis. It had been about a month since she’d abruptly quit her job, and since her girlfriend had stopped showing up around here. Peridot knew better than to ask her about it. She didn’t have to.

Jasper had always seemed like bad news.

Peridot had never needed to deal with something like this before, though she’d done her research. Avoid mentioning the person in question, or anything relating to her. Don’t be antagonistic. Don’t threaten her… and of course, she kept screwing up. As someone who was actually capable of sticking most of her foot into her mouth upon detaching it, she seemed doomed to foot in mouth disease. This evening was no exception…

Somehow, though, she felt there was something else going on. Lapis had always been in a less-than-perfect condition while she had been dating Jasper, yet had always managed to accept Peridot’s various social missteps as just that. Something must have happened when they broke up, Peridot was sure of it, but asking about that was just… well, the worst possible idea. There was no way she could do that.

Well, there wasn’t much for her to do about any of that now. She wandered into the kitchen to grab a bag of fritos, then back to the living room to sit down in her nest of fans and turn on the television herself. Their plan was very rudimentary, only allowing one channel to be watched at a time between the apartment’s three televisions, but that was fine. The two of them at least had the same taste in television… More or less. Peridot still couldn’t believe how Lapis thought that season five of _Camp Pining Hearts_ was anything other than unwatchable trash.

In case that happened to come on the channel that almost exclusively played reruns of that very show, Peridot could always pull out her laptop and dig into the deep web for some instructional videos on how to make a metal forge in one’s garage or something else of a similar, intellectual and innovative level to properly counter the soulless drivel that was season five. One great thing about this apartment was the fact that electric bills were _included_ in the rent. Someone else was paying for the overuse of fans and various other electronic devices here in this apartment, though Peridot had determined early on that most other residents of the complex were being overcharged on the front of electricity use inside their rent payments, so she didn’t feel so bad. Karma to the slumlord, assuming she could singlehandedly drive the bills above the amounts that were unfairly collected from the others.

Right now, though, the rerun was an episode somewhere around the middle of season two. Ah yes, the portion of the show where it really started to get into the _pining hearts_ instead of just focusing on the totally unnecessary requited romance between Percy and Paulette. The pining didn’t always match up with her own ships, of course, but it was better than the thinly disguised romantic comedy the show had cuckolded itself into for most of the first season. It was almost taken off the air because another teen drama show had more interesting plot points and very nearly stole its thunder entirely… 

Peridot wasn’t so much a fan of that other show, but she had to admit it was much more new and daring than season one of _Camp Pining Hearts_. However, that season still laid the foundation for all her ships, and for the show’s premise, so it had a place in her heart. Season five was the real travesty, the season which got the show taken off the air for falling into predictable, awful, boring relationships between every main character, the conflict no longer driven by the drama but by contrived situations that were to be expected of a _family sitcom_ more than of a teen drama.

Somewhere along the way, Peridot must have spaced out into the world of _Camp Pining Hearts_ because before she even knew it, the bag of fritos was empty and it was several hours later. She was only alerted to this fact by the doorbell ringing, a raucous tone that she had still been unable to change to something more tolerable. She succeeded once, but it was back the next day. She had a sneaking suspicion the maintenance man for the building had reset it on her out of some namby-pampy _law_ against making modifications like that to rented properties. Ha! As if she cared about something silly like that. Nobody got arrested for doorbells. After all, police always knocked.

A combination of the time and the fact that the person at the door wouldn’t _stop_ pressing that doorbell let Peridot know even before she opened the door that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Amethyst had arrived. She jumped up from her nest of fans as quickly as she could and dashed for the door, pulling it open with a huge grin on her face, “Amethyst!!”

“Hey, Wondernerd,” Amethyst chuckled, pulling her hand away from the doorbell to hold it against her hip and look Peridot over, “You look… Different. You get a haircut?”

“No, my hair’s the same,” Peridot giggled as she let Amethyst into the apartment, as if she was holding in the juiciest secret ever, then held up her hand that Lapis had found in the fridge a few hours earlier, “But I did make some modifications to the sensitivity on my prosthetics! Now I can use touchscreens with eighty-five percent precision!”

“...Wow,” Amethyst nodded, looking at the hand, generally unimpressed with the technobabble, but grinning nonetheless, “So, aside from the hand thingy, what’ve you been up to? And how bout Lapis? Steven reminded me like,” She pulled out her phone to show the number of messages from him, “Twenty times. To see if Lapis is all right, cause she won’t answer his snapchats. I kinda think he’s overreacting, but…”

“Good grief…” Peridot trailed off, staring at the floor and running a hand up through her hair in grief, “She won’t even do _that_?”

“I just figured you were running low on internet or somethin’,” Amethyst shrugged, “I mean, think about it. Why would she ever stop snapping Steven? That’s like, her lifeblood or something. It’s gotta just be an outside force preventing her, yeah?”

“No…” Peridot shook her head, breathless as Amethyst wandered over to get a bag of pretzels from the cabinet, making herself at home in Peridot’s home as usual, “I mean, you’re right, she would _never_ break her streak with Steven. Technical difficulties be damned, she would _make_ me fix it for her… No, no, this is not good…”

“Eh?” Amethyst turned, mouth full of pretzels, but the worry was now spreading to her as well. She finished the mouthful, then continued talking, “Did somethin’ happen to her that Steven didn’t hear about? Like, he would have told me…”

“Yeah, something did,” Peridot nodded, then crossed her arms, “Can you promise not to tell anybody else if I tell you this? Not even Steven? Or… Especially not Steven.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Amethyst nodded, “Not gladly, but if it’s important…”

“About a month ago…” Peridot frowned, itching her nose and glancing away, “Lapis and Jasper broke up. And I think something happened between them. Something… bad.”

“Oh…” Amethyst trailed off, then sneered, clenching her fists, “Dammit! I knew there was something off about her!”

“So did I, but she was so… Confident. Charismatic, I guess?” Peridot shrugged, “I guess I knew it was bad. Bad for Lapis, but what could I do? Say something to her? She would have made excuses… Besides. Everyone at her job was convinced they were such a cute couple… Not everyone was as pissed off by Jasper as you, Amethyst.”

“If I ever see her again, I’m gonna break her nose! At the very minimum!” Amethyst growled under her breath, “What the Hell did she do to Lapis?”

“I don’t know details. She won’t talk about it,” Peridot sighed, then pushed her glasses up her nose, “I just hope she’s okay. I want her… to be okay. She’s my friend, you know?” This was genuine, even to Peridot’s own surprise. Any psych class could tell her that she just wanted to stop feeling guilty for not stepping in sooner and preventing this situation, but… This wasn’t psych class. She was okay with carrying guilt. Lapis was her concern.

“Hey,” Amethyst frowned, then looked over to the door to Lapis’ room, “Steven said she stopped snapping him a few hours ago, and that she _always_ told him before she went to sleep. So…” She tensed her shoulders, “Peri, do you want me to break down her door?”

“Breaking down would be unnecessary, seeing as her door doesn’t lock, but…” Peridot nodded as she stared at the foreboding wood plank on hinges, “It would be wise of us to check on her. She’s been watching TV for the past few hours, but…”

“I gotcha,” Amethyst nodded, then walked over and threw the door open.

-

The relationship had never had a perfect phase.

Lapis knew that abusive relationships had a perfect phase. But then, that was only when it was one-sided, wasn’t it? She was just as bad, if not worse, than Jasper. Objectively, she couldn’t come up with any examples, but in the broad scope, she was sure she was just as horrible. She looked forward to arguments, just because it meant she could say nasty things without it being uncalled for. She relished the opportunities she got to hurt Jasper, few and far between as those were. So she didn’t deserve to be this shaken up over it. She was certain of this fact.

It had no perfect phase, because it started out like most work relationships. A strange sort of friendship which, at the prompting of coworkers upon finding out their matching romantic orientations, was pushed into trying; just _trying_ to see what it would be like for them to be an item. It was weird, and awkward, but it worked well enough to stay together. Lapis was sure the rough parts would just work out with time. That was what she told herself. That was what she told everybody. She was determined to make it work with Jasper, because she couldn’t deny there was some level of chemistry at play, and that was better than any blind date she’d been on in the past year.

Was that determination what made it her fault? It had to have been. She wanted Jasper around at first for the sake of a relationship, then later, for the rush that came with mistreating her. When Jasper would make a scene in public, and the full-blown shouting match let her say what she thought. Those times when she wasn’t completely petrified by Jasper’s grip, or her eyes, or just the idea of her, and could retaliate, and she was worse. She drew blood every time. Bruises were tame in comparison.

So why? She was sure that Jasper suffered more than her for their floundering relationship, so why was it that she felt so incapacitated? Despite her favorite television show playing, the world was pounding just outside her earshot, she wasn’t here nor there. Dissociation. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the phenomenon, but it had never happened like this. Why? Why was this happening, when all that had happened was that Peridot, somebody she trusted, grabbed her wrist? She didn’t understand, but was beginning to explain.

That grip on her wrist, it reminded her of something. A particular memory with Jasper that she couldn’t say had faded or been forgotten, but that she hadn’t considered for months. It wasn’t that bad, after all. She was being oversensitive, to feel so bad about it at the time, and now too. It was all resurfacing, and she held the offending wrist as far from the rest of her body as she could, spread-eagle on her bed-

She closed her legs, then crossed them for good measure, still staring up at the ceiling with that blank expression. That was the first time something had seemed seriously wrong, The night was over. Movie credits rolling, dregs of her hot chocolate finished up. She hadn’t had anything to drink that night, neither had Jasper. Sober.

She felt it was her fault, was convinced of it. Jasper told her, after all. When she said goodbye and moved to leave, to go home, only to find that grip around her wrist. She was being so snuggly that night, flirting so much, and she looked so nice and it had already been three months. Why was she holding out this long? And she wondered. Wondered why she had, but she still wanted to leave. She said that. She remembered that much in the most detail. All she wanted was to go home.

Was that how she’d expected her first time with a serious girlfriend to be like? No, she couldn’t imagine it was. The awkward fumbling, half-drunk after prom night with a girl who was just experimenting, that had been more romantic. Nobody confessed love that night. The number of times Jasper said the word, however, was meaninglessly large. It was empty to her, and she felt heartless for perceiving that emptiness. It should have meant something to her. It didn’t. So it was her own fault, after all.

She had been a bad girlfriend all along.

She deserved everything.

Even… that final night.

She should have died then. Why hadn’t she died? Why did the universe let somebody like her keep on living, among people who had no idea what horrible things she was capable of doing? Peridot… Steven… She was going to hurt them. Anyone she cared about. Maybe she already had and couldn’t realize it, because she was still so attached that she felt she could do no wrong by them. She couldn’t honestly believe she would ever harm either of them, but the creeping feeling deep in her soul told her it was inevitable. After what she did to Jasper, she was capable of anything. Any awful thing.

How much time had passed? She wasn’t sure, lost in her thoughts and memories like this. However, it was too much, as she soon found out when Amethyst and Peridot both barged into her room. She sat up slowly, and found herself becoming, inch by inch, aware of her surroundings once more. Something she noticed very soon into her arrival back to alertness, was that her cheeks were wet. She’d been crying, and she didn’t even know it. Was this a new low for her?

“Lapis! Oh thank goodness, you’re okay!” Peridot shouted at her, and she turned slowly to face her, the nasal voice ringing in her ears.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be…?” She wondered, though she was hardly trying to keep the words sounding truthful. Maybe part of her wanted to explain? No, that wasn’t it. She wanted to be able to give a genuine apology.

“Because you disappeared for like, four hours without any warning to Steven. He got like, super worried about you, so…” Amethyst waved her hand in the air as she explained, “I promised to ask about you when I came to visit Peri. Also, because you’re crying,” She moved further into the room to examine Lapis’ pillow, “And have been crying like, a lot, if this puddle is anything to go by. Look, I get you’re upset you broke up with Jasper, but…” Amethyst froze as she realized she probably shouldn’t have said that.

“How did… How did you know that…?” Lapis asked, staring at Amethyst with that same look Peridot had seen earlier upon grabbing her wrist, and Peridot pulled a face that was somewhere between a grimace and just being straight-up punched. That may have even been the first time Lapis had heard Jasper’s name since the breakup, and Peridot could tell she wasn’t taking it well. So she did the first thing that came to mind. Ramble.

“Lapis! I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I know you haven’t told anybody and I know I just figured it out on my own using my frankly spectacular powers of deduction but I told her, I told her because she was worried about you and I _thought_ she’d know better than to mention it but I guess not and it’s completely my fault for giving away your secret and I’m so, so sorry Lapis, please don’t hate me and please don’t let this get you all messed up…”

“Peridot,” Lapis turned to her, and looked… normal, except for the tearstains. Thank goodness, “It’s fine. I knew you’d figure it out. I don’t mind if people know, I just… can’t tell them myself. I’m sorry. I know I’m a mess, but I just can’t… say her name. Yet. I’m sure I’ll be fine in another week or so.”

“We both know that’s got a one-hundred and one percent chance of being a complete lie, with a one percent margin of error…” Peridot narrowed her eyes, then stepped closer to Lapis, “A week is not enough time to get over something which just today sent you into one, and almost a second full-blown panic attack,” She sighed and shook her head, facepalming, “What am I ever going to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” Lapis shrugged, “Nothing, probably. I _will_ be fine, it just might take a bit… longer than I said,” She pulled her phone out and held it up, taking a picture of Peridot then sending it to Steven with the caption ‘Lol, Peri was worried too. Sorry.’

“Lapis…” Peridot sighed, looking away, “Are you sure?”

“Honestly,” Lapis glanced at Amethyst, then deemed her presence harmless before answering Peridot, voice blank and empty,  
“Not at all.”


End file.
